“Jio, India was stuck with 2G technology…While it took 25 years for the Indian telecom industry to build its 2G network, Jio built its 4G network in only three years,” said Mukesh Ambani, chairman of the oil to telecom business house in an industry event on Thursday.
The telco which launched its services in 2016 and now is racing to get 500 million subscribers is now gearing up to launch 5G services in India.
“To further extend our global leadership in connectivity, Jio is now rolling out a high-speed, low-latency optical fiber network to more than 50 million homes and premises. Simultaneously, we are preparing for rolling out 5G services across India,” said Ambani.
The telco is pushing for 5G spectrum auctions, which is expected to be held next year and has already applied for trials. The telco says it has created a homegrown 5G ecosystem and can become a global vendor much like Nokia, Samsung, Huawei.
“The Jio movement shattered the widely held belief that India is not ready to adopt advanced technologies,” said the chairman.
The telco has also been asking for plugging of 2G services , in a direct attack to rivals Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea , who along with the sector regulator have stressed that 2G is important in remote locations of the country.
The telco has also sold 100 million 4G feature phones with the aim of getting more subscribers on the 4G platform.
Ambani also emphasised the changes Jio brought in connectivity and data consumption. ” India’s monthly data consumption went up from 0.2 billion GB to 1.2 billion GB… a growth of 600%… and data consumption has been multiplying ever since.
Today, India consumes over 6 exabytes of data every month… more than 30 times pre-Jio levels, just four years ago,” he said.
The telco is betting big on its digital arm-Jio Platforms, which has received investments of around Rs 1.52 lakh crore from 13 global firms including Facebook and Google. The operator is working on technologies like blockchain, IoT, AI, Big Data Analytics to come up with a new set of offerings.
“Using these technologies, Jio Platforms is in the process of creating compelling solutions for multiple industry verticals and ecosystems spanning Telecom, Media and Entertainment, New Commerce, Financial Services, Education, Healthcare and Agriculture, ” said Ambani.
Credit: economictimes.indiatimes.com
